


Burn it Out

by Blue_hare



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Cupid - Freeform, Falling In Love, Fluff, Inspired by Music, M/M, Mythology References, Valentines Day 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 07:21:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17783060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_hare/pseuds/Blue_hare
Summary: AU inspired by Ed Sheeran's Give Me Love music video.





	Burn it Out

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentines Day!

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He is perched on top of a landline, old but sturdy, catlike and impossibly comfortable with the height. He has never questioned it, this routine of his. 

A name shows up on his list, he finds the highest point; a tree, a skyscraper, a landline, and watches, just watches.

He has heard the humans call it "people-watching" and he guesses that that's what he does.

Levi people-watches. 

From such heights, such a distance, he can perfectly observe the difference between him and them. The “humans.” 

The biggest of them is that they are at his mercy when it comes to the thing called “love”. _Love,_ the kind that the humans all hope to have and experience once in their incredibly short life spans. An intangible thing, amorphous, undefinable to their many tongues and something that they can never hope to achieve by themselves. 

Not without the help of arrows dipped just right and aimed straight and true, right through their hearts. 

Mess either of those things up and it can be lethal to them and to others. Too much poison and it's an obsession. Too little and it’s a simple infatuation. The arrow-head must be perfectly doused. Must spend just the right amount of time basking in that poison to become the true love. The heart and soul love that Eros and Psyche share. 

Levi’s aim is always straight and true. His arrows perfectly sharp and cleaned. His batch of poison perfectly brewed. His bow polished with bright, yellow lemon, the string taut and made with the most durable heartstring. Levi flies higher, is faster, than any of the other cupids and yet...he has begun to doubt, to question. Perhaps he has been at the job too long but he can’t think of anything else he would do.

_2000 years is a long time._

Because there is no other job that allows for such freedom as a _cupid_ does. None, that requires being able to be in such close proximity to humans. Humans, who are very much made in the image of gods and yet so different. 

The rules are so simple: follow the list, aim and shoot, straight and true. He is a natural, everyone says so, and with so many perfectly aimed arrows and many everlasting lovers, he is very much admired by the other cupids. Still Levi is not satisfied. 

He, for all that his arrows pierce perfectly, has not been able to achieve a great and true love. The one withstanding time and space. The ones that go down in history, in literature. His Romeo and Juliet (he thinks they were completely dumb), his Achilles and Patroclus. The heart and soul love that Eros and Psyche share. After so many years, that love, remains elusive to him. 

It is why he begins to people watch, in an effort to perhaps spot the beginning of such a love. Then he begins to frequent libraries and bookshops - reads books full of such loves and poetry (so much poetry), and goes back to his previous targets (the ones still alive) in search of something that can help him pinpoint his failure in acquiring such a love in his record, of provoking one within the humans. 

It’s a pointless task. 

All his targets are happy and in love and _it should be enough_ that his arrows were just right but it angers him. It angers him and he does not understand why?

He goes back to his research and reads _more._ Levi, even goes back to the ancient library and looks through dusty tomes but nothing. He remains angry, moody even. 

He does not understand what is happening but he cannot dwell too much on it. Suddenly there is an influx of names on the list. It becomes never-ending and he wonders whether he is being scolded in some way for his new found resentment toward his job as a cupid. 

He still keeps reading. He pilfers texts from libraries, from all over the world, on the subject trying to find the definition of love. To _understand it_ because that was the revelation that most shook the core of him. 

Levi has never understood it, the thing called _love _and so he has never questioned it.__

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It makes him ashamed because he is the one to carry those arrows steeped in poison. _Poison._ It never bothered him before that he called the brew _poison_. It bothers him now. It bothers him _so much._

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He works tirelessly for 10 days brewing and aiming and shooting, and the list never seems to end. There are no breaks between and Levi feels exhausted. 

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On the days he manages to steal short breaks, he sneaks into movie theaters and watches, whatever he can catch, of films like Casablanca and Gone with the Wind and Titanic and In the Mood for Love, and others, so many others, in all sorts of languages. The burrow in his being becomes a pit and then he becomes insatiable when it comes to humans and understanding love. He thinks, that maybe, he is trying to understand it, from their perspective.

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Levi begins to frequent wedding and clubs and turns invisible and goes along dates. He becomes a voyeur and watches the humans roll around in bed, thrusting and panting and clawing, moaning and groaning and it makes him feel emptier (even as his cheeks burn a bright cherry red). He has never seen this particular activity of humans. The act of watching such a carnal and vulnerable display burns bright in his memory and he keeps away from the humans for a while. Instead, he goes back to his most recent targets. He watches them hold hands as they walk. Watches the way they look to each other (eyes warm, a curl to their lips) when the other isn’t looking.

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He believes that what he is feeling is _yearning_ and he doesn’t know how to handle that feeling. 

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Levi has a small room on the very top of an abandoned building, a crumbling church made of thick, heavy stone. The entirety of a wall is a window, arched and elaborate, with stained glass that, as the sun sets, casts everything in a myriad of colours. There is no staircase that can lead to it. It crumbled long ago. He flies everyday day through the window, into his floating room above the church.

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Levi has taken to collecting things. He finds a book on flowers and their meanings. Pink roses and yellow peony, white sage and striped carnations. He finds some of these flowers, and stores them between tissue paper, and presses them between the many books he has “borrowed” from the bookstores and libraries. 

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He writes on scattered pieces of paper; poetry and passages from books. Draws in some the longing looks of lovers. He reads on the different kinds of love that the humans have identified: agape, storge, philia and eros. He finds hallmark cards and pins them to the stone walls of his room. 

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He looks at paintings in museums. Stares long and hard at strokes and captured gasps and smiles on faces. He circles statues of couples embracing, marble mouths opened in silent gasps and breathy sighs. 

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On nights, when the heat cursing through his veins is too much, he listens to Edith Piaf sing about _La vie en Rose_ as he reads through his books. He goes over passages (over and over) again until he has memorized about _rosa de sal, topacio/o flecha de claveles que propagan fuego;/_. He ponders arrows made of carnations and Pablo Neruda and rose colored lifes and he finds no relief. 

There was a lightness to Levi that wasn’t there before, a floaty feeling that coursed through his veins from each pound of his heart. It made him dizzy made him warm in places he had never been before. That heat. A craving. An addicts craving; it burned and scoured the lining of his heart, of his soul and he couldn’t stand it. He wanted the fire gone, extinguished, never to return. He craved the ice, that cool, glacial not-feeling. 

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He craved and craved and craved. 

It drove him mad, that not-feeling. Frightened him because he was cupid and should not be feeling such things. He followed the list, shot straight and through over and over again and he loathed it so much. 

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His thoughts started turning colors, colors that had never been or seen. Cupids only see in black and white (never greens and reds and violets, or soft pastels). The phosphenes burn in flashes behind closed eyelids and the sound in his ears was numb and static. White noise everywhere. 

After each arrow shot, he felt less cupid, _more something else._

He leaned his forehead against the white tile of the shower. He was so aware of the heaviness of his wings, dove grey when soaked. The feathers felt like weights, chains that held him back from something Levi could not utter out loud, did not dare to. Spies were everywhere. He knew how Aphrodite worked, that vain Goddess of Love. 

He watched the dirty water spiral away in coils down the drain and saw the first of his feathers follow it. It was a wet fluff hardly noticeable and yet Levi felt a panic. He was always meticulous about the care of his wings. So proud was he of them. He fluffed and preened them and now they were falling the way snowflakes fall in clumps down to the ground, vanishing before spring. 

He fooled himself, thinking that it was just a carelessness that had caused it but, he could do nothing as they fell between flights. When he woke, it would be to sneezes and the dispersal of fluffy down like snowflakes. He stopped flying unless necessary and still it was not enough. His flight feathers started falling off like the petals of white lilies. He couldn't help it when he saw one, after the other, fall off. 

“He loves me. He loves me not.” 

He laughed broken so that he would not weep. 

It was the end of the week and so few remained. His wings more down than anything. He was cold all the time and so very empty. He wondered if he had done something that deserved punishment. 

“Flew too fucking close to the sun.” 

He laid back on the down covered bed. He had stopped trying to clean all the feathers. Had stopped peering at his reflection in the mirror. He knew what to expect, black hair covered in white fluff and tired, empty, dull eyes.

His list grows longer and he ignores it. 

He knows what’s coming soon. It won’t be long until they send someone after him. He won’t be able to hide. He has ignored the list long enough and everything else as well. His bow and quiver sit in a corner collecting dust. 

His wings have begun to sprout new feathers, all down, fluffy and white and _useless_ in flight, although he is much warmer now. But Levi is tired, so very tired. He keeps wondering when they will come for him. Before they do Levi wants to go out one last time and see the humans. 

One last time. 

He leaves his floating room and climbs through the window. He brings the arrows in his quiver and the bow. Today is the last day he will play at being cupid. He, for the first time, is grateful for the tree next to the window. He has overlooked it, many a time, since he had his wings. 

Levi wonders though the town. It is very quiet and he wonders why? The thin white shirt he has on is old and frayed and he wishes for a sweater like the one he had seen one of his targets wear. 

His memories of them are getting very fuzzy and vague but he thinks that he will probably remember _that target_ far after the Garrison come for him. It was the only blip, smudge, error, missed shot, on his record. One of his first targets (a man) and he missed when he aimed his arrow. He can’t remember the _why_ now. It was so very long ago. Decades maybe centuries. 

He finds an open café and wonders inside, stares at the bored cashier and the lone man sitting on a table; his bright orange hair reminds him of Isabelle’s, although hers is more chrome than orange. He stays there for a while, sitting (the perpetual hiring sign in the corner) by the window hoping someone will pass and take his mind of things but nothing...He leaves and vaguely hears the cashier and the man comment on the slow evening. 

“Its Valentines Day after all.” She replies in a tired tone. 

It stops Levi for a moment and then he exits. He knows where to go. 

The place is packed when he arrives. The lights flashing a blue-silver, like lightning. The loud reverberating beat sounds and _feels_ like thunder. The mass of people so close to him that he feels claustrophobic. He closes his eyes and feels, only feels. His cupid senses have dulled. 

The people bump into him and they brush his wings and _they shiver._ He raises his arms, high above his head, imitating them.

He sways and sways with the music and the mass of bodies. He takes a deep breath and his hand is reaching for an arrow. He runs the sharp tip on exposed skin and watches the goose-pimples on the girls arm. Levi slithers between bodies, arrow in hand, brushing (almost but not quite piercing). He is standing in the middle of a group, staring directly at the brunette who is swaying his head to the beat, arms high up in the air. Levi brushes the arrow near his Adams apple and watches him swallow and then he is staring not-directly at him and Levi is sure, as anything, that this boy has the exact, same eyes as Isabelle. 

Emerald green. 

He peers even closer and yes(!) they are the same and that's what does it. The memory of his cupid friends' emerald eyes, eyes that will never look like these ones. He takes that arrow and plunges it into the brunette with green eyes’ heart. He turns around and looks to the person, who, green-eyes was staring at takes another arrow and plunges that one into their heart. A light brunette with sea-blue eyes. He has enough time, to get out of the way, as they reach for one another to meet in a frenzied kiss. 

He observes as they embrace and then between the gaps sees eyes like his own. Silver and lonely and opened in surprise at the embracing young men. He parts them with his arms and steps to her and pierces her heart; watches as she reaches for the green-eyed brunette and kisses him fiercely. The brunettes hand still entwined with the sea-blue eyed male. 

Levi picks arrow after arrow, and pierces heart after heart. The act feels violent and vicious and all so satisfying. He doesn’t stay to see his work, he leaves a mess of embracing bodies behind him.

He walks through a dark tunnel, spots two young men and shots them with his bow and arrow. Straight and true. When he passes them, the taller one with freckles, is pressed to the wall of the tunnel as the other continues mouthing on his neck. As he exist he can still hear sweet nothings, spoken in French, echoing in the darkness behind him. 

He passes a park and shots all three joggers. He leaves, as the tallest one stops the petite blonde female to lean down and kiss her chastely. The other pale-blonde male does the same to the tall brunette as Levi takes flight. 

It’s a wobbly flight, more so as he aims shot after shot, and watches arrow after arrow find a target. A petite short haired woman and her tall wavy haired companion, a man with his hair in a bun and his long haired companion with the blue dress. A bespectacled woman who nearly tackles a mousy brown haired man. That scene repeated with a tall woman and her petite blonde haired friend. 

Levi is balancing on the spire of a building staring at the town below.

Only two arrows remain in his quiver. 

He takes flight sure that this will be his last, his final flight. 

_His wings are burning._

Below, the crowd looks up as snow-like-fluff rains down around them.

He reaches the top of the land line. He needs to rest. He crouches down and stares at the old church. He made it to this place he thinks of as his home. He will wait for them there. The lights from the town are far enough away that he can spot the stars. Brilliant and bright, in the heavens. His breathe comes out foggy and he shivers. _Just a little further_ he tell himself as he stands up, balanced on the top, and steps forward into the air. He lurches but beats his wings and is just about to reach the tree when everything just stops.

“Oh.” 

His wings have stopped working and Levi is falling, falling, falling.

_So this is how they planned to do it._ he thinks. 

They took his wings mid-flight. 

Levi closes his eyes as he crashes through the roof of the church, the sight of the starry night and his down feathers dispersing, the last thing he hopes to see. His landing is soft, he has fallen on top of his bed but then the roof comes down and his floating room crashes to the very bottom. He still breathes. He spies one remaining arrow and reaches for it. He doesn’t know what compels him to do it but he takes this one remaining arrow and plunges it into his neck. Surely with this, self-poisoning, he will perish and safe the unnecessary job to any they may have sent. 

_What happens after cupid dies?_ He wonders, as he closes his eyes. The burning finally put out.

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The call comes in unexpectedly. 

Valentine's Day is not a day where too much crime is committed. Although he supposes couples can get a bit carried away, he thinks as he spot the scene in the park. He shakes his head at the lack of morals and common decency of today’s youth. 

When he arrives the scene has already been taped of and there is an ambulance parked outside the old church. He shows his ID to the policemen and they let him in. _The church should probably be demolished after this_ he thinks. There is a woman that greets him as she shows him in, Hange. Her hair is disheveled and her neck exposed to show a bright-red lovers bite. 

“It is Valentine's day, Erwin.” She offers, unashamedly. 

The blonde grins and rolls his eyes good-naturedly as they step to the open room. There’s a bed in the middle of all the debris and Erwin stares up at the giant gap in the ceiling of the church. There is white dust floating all throughout the room. He squints his eyes. 

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“Is it snow?” Hange asks at his side. 

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“No.” He catches one between his fingers. “Its down, down feathers.” 

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They both look to his hand as the fluff flies away to join the others floating all around them. The both of them wondering if there was a dove cot above. Hange then directs him to the body found lying on the bed. Erwin leans closer to take a better look. 

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A young male; pale with pinched eyebrows and long ebony hair lying in a mess of soft, down feathers.

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“They have to clear the way to bring in the paramedics.” Hange explains motioning to all the fallen stones and scattered wood.

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“It’s freezing out here.” Erwin frowns as he touches his finger to the man's neck. There's blood on the white sheets. Erwin wonders where the bed came from as he looks around the room. Hange begins to explain that they think he was a squatter when the roof fell in. But, how did they get the bed here? And it looks as though this person was well fed. They don’t especially look sick or drugged.

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The paramedics are taking too long, much to Erwin’s displeasure. Hange heads out to see what's the holdup. Erwin he takes his scarf (long and white) to cover the young male with. Erwin is leaning closer when he begins to stir. 

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_They are hidden in the tree, waiting for the perfect timing. They watch the blonde man lean over Levi and then they aim straight and true. Their arrows fly and find their target and go through the blonde and then through the ebony haired, just as he sits up._

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_“Perfect shot.”_

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Levi awakens and sits up and he feels it, just as his eyes focus on the person who has their warm hands on his shoulders. His eyes are blue, like the sky, and his hair is spun gold, and Levi feels his heart skip a beat. The heartstring plucked until there’s an undeniable and pleasant humming, vibrating though his heart, through his soul. His lips are parted in a gasp and the gasp unfurls in the cold air and vanishes between them. 

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Erwin smiles at him (and how does he know his name?). But he knows this is Erwin, just as he knows that he likes soft knitted sweaters, like the scarf he wrapped around him. His (Erwin's) hands are reaching for his head. His fingers carding though his hair gently for he was bleeding from his head. Levis ears burn. 

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“You have feathers in your hair.” His voice is deep and comforting and Levi _knows it,_ want's to hear it again and again. He plucks a perfectly white feather from behind his neck and holds it out for Levi to see. 

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“A flight feather.” 

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Erwin seems surprised that he knows and with a twinkle asks him if he flew. And Levi answers "yes" but he fell and his wings burned and vanished. 

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“Like Icarus?” 

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“Yes. I flew too close to the burning Sun.” Levi tilts his head, seeming to consider something that in end decides to keep to himself. 

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“So your name is Icarus then?” 

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. “And yours, it must be Helios.” Levi takes great pleasure in watching his blue eyes widen and then the mirth that bursts within them. 

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“No, I am not a God.” 

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“And I am not a disobedient brat.” _But it’s close enough_ Levi thinks. 

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They are still looking to each other as Hange comes back in with the medics who fuss over Levi and ask him questions that he answers with short, blunt replies. He tells them that he heard something as he was walking by and investigated when the roof fell in. They question him about his jacket and says that whomever was living here (he gestures to the bed) must have taken it. They frown at his story but he appears unharmed, except for the bleeding in head, which, he gets checked and bandaged by the paramedics. They let him leave when he tells them that he wasn’t carrying his ID with him. He only needs to come in to the station to show it to them. They are unlikely to find the thief and he says that he doesn’t much care for the coat and that nothing of value was on it anyway. 

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Erwin, who remained close by during the entire thing, offers him a ride afterwards but, Levi declines saying he lives very close by. When Levi begins to unwind the white scarf from around his neck Erwin’s warm hands stop him. 

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“Keep it.” 

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His voice soft and meant for only him to hear echoes in Levi’s head, over and over again, as he walks toward the café. He has always wanted to try their black tea. He hopes it’s still open. He stops suddenly when hears the rustlin in the tree, next to the church. He thinks he hears the giggle of a familiar girl and then see the flash of long chrome hair, hears a male voice chastising them as he looks up into the sky. 

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He closes his eyes just as the sky starts raining down, thick and fluffy, clumps of snow flakes. They burn memories of a life, 2000 year ago, away as they melt on ebony hair and eyelashes. Two cupids familiar with the man below high five as their silver bows turn golden. A true love. 

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_The heart and soul love that Eros and Psyche share._

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Levi opens his eyes and he tucks his hands in his pockets and breathes deeply the scent of pine and something else lingering on Erwin's scarf. He finds the note with his address remembering that he has just moved to this town. He can't believe he got robbed and smacked in the head by a falling church roof. He sighs. 

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_“At least I’m alive.”_

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Levi decides he can wait till tomorrow to check out that coffee shop. When he gets home, to his is small studio apartment, he remembers all that he still has to unpack. For tonight he chooses to ignore that task as he finds his record player and puts on Edith Piaf. She croons in a thick, French accent about _la vie en rose_ and Levi falls asleep thinking of a would-be-but-not sungod. 

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They are sleeping on a down filled mattress or one of them is. Levi is staring at the sleeping Erwin beside him. He sleeps very deeply as though he had overworked himself in a past life and only now is making up for it. Levi enjoys this quiet moment right before Erwin awakens. 

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He runs the pad of a finger across his eyelashes, so very pale (nearly silver) and long against his skin. He lets out a “Tch” grumbling about unfairly, handsome, bastards and their stupidly, thick and soft eyelashes and the freckles on the span of wide shoulders. 

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There’s an arm around Levi that draws him in close to the “unfairly handsome bastard” and he grunts as his nose ends close to his collarbone. 

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“Mmmhh, Levi, good morning.” Erwin kisses his head and then blows on his hair. Levi smacks him on his bare chest, promptly. 

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“There were down feathers in your hair.” 

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“I told you this was the reason I didn’t want a down mattress!” 

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Erwin watches Levi sulk and pout. There are still fluffy feather stuck to his hair but he thinks he will keep that to himself a little while longer. He rolls them over so that Levi is splayed out on the white sheets. His ebony hair truly a work of art, as are his reddening cheeks. Erwin bends his head and kisses softly along Levi’s neck. He recites Levi’s favored poem. He knows everything about Levi, know his heart, his soul and as Levi arches beneath him he knows the same holds for Levi. His Icarus. 

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_I love you without knowing how, or when, or where._

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_I love you simply, without complexities or pride,_

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_I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving_

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_but this, in which there is no I or you,_

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_so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,_

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_so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close with mine._

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__They lay entwined and when Erwin’s mouth finally finds Levi’s he can't help the overwhelming feeling deep within the vault of his heart; a flood of grief and fury and love. Levi’s mouth tastes of fire again, of blood and carnations, of rock and scald. Levi revels in this feeling, this feeling of being _burned_ is worth it. To be set _ablaze,_ the nerves, the blood, the air he breathes, by a fallen star is _glorious._

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That night, five years ago, is fractured in his memories. The shiver and blue of those stars in the distance of a dark sky. A fracture between an unknown, forgotten, past life and the one he holds, measured in the distance, closing and not, between him and his _Helios; _in the gold of his hair, the lapis lazuli of his eyes, the sharpness of his cheek bones and the heat that builds and builds until it expands and he is left feeling forevermore the embers of such a love.__

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Levi lays on top of Erwin, watches his pale lashes tremble and the drops of sweat blink away. He thinks of flying and the suns rays being the key to his heart, to this calm. 

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In this part of this story Levi hopes he is the one to die first (he doesn’t think he can take being left behind again). He doesn’t know where that thought comes from, just like so many other things he cannot explain. That _they_ cannot explain. 

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Levi kisses the tip of Erwin’s nose and tucks his head right over his heart.

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“And I will die of love because I love you, because I love you, love, in fire and blood.” 

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They fall asleep, their breaths in sync, the snow outside falls like soft, down feathers, covering everything in a blanket of pure white. 

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(not) _Icarus_ and (not) _Helios._

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Their love is in the ledger of true love. The heart and soul love that Eros and Psyche share. 

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A poison, terrible, and glorious, and sweet, that won’t burn out. 

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<3

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**Author's Note:**

> Purely for me to write a total and complete falling-in-love-fluffy-flowery fic using poetry by the incredible Pablo Neruda and rom-songs and Literature and myths etc.  
> I hope you were able to catch some of the references to other characters in the SNK universe. Let me know your thoughts.


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